Prepare to flex your guest rooms

While most of us are just peering into the still murky crystal ball for 2021, some people are looking ahead as far as 2035 and what our guest room users then will expect to find.

At architects ReardonSmith they believe future ‘digital native’ guests will consider versatility and seamless technology to be the norm.

We can look forward to king-sized beds that glide out of the way to the ceiling so that room for entertainment, exercise or relaxation is maximised, alongside moveable wall and fittings such as interactive mirrors. Prepare for high-tech housekeeping! Jonny Sin, director at ReardonSmith, has revealed how his business worked with HoCoSo, a company focused on creating solutions for the future of the hospitality real estate industry, on a project throughout 2020 after being approached to design a ‘Guestroom 2035’ concept for Sleep & Eat, a hospitality design and innovation event.

Sim says: “Although this was not our intention when we started out on this fascinating project, we realised that we had also created a room to self-isolate in with immediate potential for hotels currently needing to re-think their existing spaces.”

Hospitality students at Glion Institute of Higher Education and Hotel school The Hague, acted as ‘the client’ as they were the right age to become the 30-somethings of 2035. Sin believes the coronavirus crisis will only accelerate trends which were emerging before the pandemic took hold. Generation Z, born between 1995 and 2010, grew up with the internet, social networks and mobile systems, and Sin says they will have a huge impact on our way of living in coming decades. The result of the project was Heya, an urban hotel room that could be dynamically reconfigured and featuring integrated technology that was not overtly on display.

Natural and sustainable materials, but nothing opulent, sit alongside wellness themes such as a four-sense shower experience with an integrated steam room. What we might consider ‘luxury’ had been replaced by just how much guests could customise their stay by using technology like apps to ‘flex’ the room.